The Stranger Came

by Frederic Lindsay

  'Yes,' Murray said flatly. He could believe that. 'Let me tell you something then you didn't know. Your deal's sour. It's time to get out of it.'

  'Have you said this to your brother?' Merchant wondered.

  'Not yet.'

  'Why come to me? Why not simply warn your brother, if you're so concerned?'

  'Because I don't know whether he could get himself out. You're the one who can find a way to bury the bodies. I'm telling you that you have to do that - and not just for yourself- for Malcolm too.'

  'Are you threatening me? You're not being absurd enough to threaten me here?' Merchant glanced around the quiet panelled room, full of territorial certainty like a man in his own place. 'A private detective…of sorts, not successful.' He bent his head to his papers and continued without looking up – 'There should be a licensing system. There seems to be no way of preventing unsuitable people from going in for security or crime prevention. Sometimes I don't understand this country.'

  It was a common enough expression – not to understand what was going on in the country. Murray had used it himself. The difference was that Murray knew himself to be native born. 'This country,' he repeated and something in his tone made the older man's head snap up.

  'Oh, that has the real policeman's sound,' Merchant said. 'You won't like foreigners. Blacks. Jews? How do you feel about Jews? The first election I won in this country was getting into Lairds Hill Golf Club. My God, I was pleased. By that time I thought even my accent was almost gone. And then by the worst of bad luck, I heard someone boasting in the bar after a round. They didn't let Jews into Lairds Hill – all these years later, they still don't. I handed in my resignation the next day. I was heartbroken, but in those days I wanted to make a stand.'

  'I didn't know you were Jewish,' Murray said, and caught a look of something like contempt in response. 'I'm not interested in the past. I'm someone who takes family seriously. I don't want Malcolm involved.'

  'Families can be a great embarrassment. I've seen the wrong kind of family ruin a man's career – A well-meaning brother, even an attractive wife.' Merchant smiled. 'I've met your brother's wife recently.'

  'On Saturday night,' Murray said, 'at Blair Heathers. I heard that from a policeman – a real one. Since you make me, I'll spell it out. The police have targeted Heathers. He's under surveillance, him, the people he sees. That contact of mine, that policeman, he mentioned you, he mentioned my brother. He even mentioned Irene.'

  'Blair was charmed by her,' Merchant said. There was no alteration in his voice, but Murray saw a sudden blankness in his eyes, the same absence he had seen in the eyes of opponents in the moment before they dropped unconscious in the ring. 'Your brother's wife is charming.'

  'It wasn't even hard,' Murray said, 'once I'd been given the tip, to work out what the deal must be. You're the politician; Malcolm works for the Region. Which contract from the Region is going to make Heathers even richer? It has to be something to do with the Underpass.' It was the same feeling as when the last blow struck bone and the man began to fall. 'I'm a better detective than you thought.'

  'I'm not a Jew,' Merchant said. He rubbed his fingers between his brows in the same unconscious effort of recollection. 'When the Nazis came to Poland, they had two plans for extermination, but only one was for the Jews – the other was for the intellectuals. After the massacre at Bromberg on Bloody Sunday, all the politicals were gathered in the camp at Soldavo - that was in the winter of 1939. I was only nineteen – a boy at University – but I had made the mistake of being the President of a left-wing student society. Heydrich had personally ordered that the activists should be killed. We didn't know all that naturally. We were the victims. I saw a guard kill a boy. I saw worse things later but because that was the first I would not forget him. It wasn't what he did to the boy, it was the noise. There's a noise a baby makes crying.'

  A muscle in Murray's thigh had cramped. It was as if he had been sitting very still for a long time. Cautiously, he eased it, while Merchant talked on as if compelled about that lost time. He wondered if the older man was ill, and even, fantastically, if it was possible that he had been told he was going to die.

  'All that stuff,' Murray said, 'it's the past,' and fell silent.

  'No,' Merchant said. 'The guard who killed the boy is here in the city. I saw him on Saturday night. I knew him at once.'

  His voice trailed away and he sat looking at his hands like a discarded prayer folded over the file of official papers. 'All that stuff,' Murray said almost gently, the way you talk to someone who is sick, 'about being a Jew in the camps. Nobody wants to hear about that Jewish stuff. All the Socialists are flying the PLO flag now. Don't you understand nobody cares about that stuff anymore?'

  'You don't listen,' Merchant said. 'It didn't happen to me because I was a Jew.'